Hope this is helpful, if you’d like to know a few terminal commands.
The AUR needs a helper installed, so you can access it … many use yay; I got used to trizen so just stuck with that, lol … using expressvpn as example
trizen -Ss expressvpn … searches AUR for expressvpn, lists packages
trizen -S expressvpn … install expressvpn package can see in the list
trizen -S expressvpn --noconfirm … doesn’t ask for confirmations during install (it will ask during the install if you want to edit different things, so, instead of pressing N all the time, --noconfirm avoids that)
trizen -R expressvpn … delete expressvpn
sudo pacman -Qm … lists AUR installs
REPO installs use pacman … using gthumb as example
pacman -Ss gthumb … search for package [shows if installed, too]
sudo pacman -S gthumb … installs package
pacman -R gthumb … remove package
pacman -Rs gthumb … remove package and dependencies not used by anything else
Actually, no, it does not. In fact, the offical recommended/supported way to use the AUR is to build the packages manually using makepkg and then installing them with pacman. The Arch Wiki even warns against using an AUR helper.
However, there is no denying that AUR helpers are extremely convenient, even if they are not supported officially, and that is why this is the way in which most people prefer to access the AUR.
Might want to add - sometimes it can be very helpful to do it ‘the Arch way’ - as some PKGBUILDS allow some easy customization of the resulting install. For instance, the conky-cairo in the AUR allows tweaking of some build parameters, such as whether it has specific nVidia support, or special case support for Audacious. Only a few AUR helpers can allow this (editing PKGBUILD before installing) such as the old (discouraged) yaourt, or the new aura - yay can’t do it properly… (does dependencies BEFORE the PKGBUILD edits!).
Indeed. While it is super convenient to use an AUR helper, one ought not rely on it. And one should at least build one package from the AUR before using a helper, just to get some experience with it and understand what’s going on.
And yes, sometimes it makes total sense to build a package manually. In fact, some packages will not build with an AUR helper, because they require that you download the source code manually due to some licence restrictions or something. Those cases are exceedingly rare, though.
i kept hearing good ppl suggesting redshift. how come no one suggesting “brightness-controller-git” ? this makes me feel a bit alone… now i am wonder if this app that i used before is popular enough to be safely inspected?
I didn’t know about brightness-controller until this thread - they do things a bit differently but at the end of the day serve a similar purpose, though i find redshift definitely helps with my eye strain.
Why o Why do you guys love to make things as complicated as possible using a terminal.
always update 1st like yay -Syu that will update the system then update AUR after if you have git packages its yay -Syu --devel
to search package for brightness i would put yay brightness it will then spew out every AUR and repro, package that has brightness in its title
type the corresponding number at the bottom of list.
